Arse­nal Ven­ture Part­ners (AVP) is the lead­ing ven­ture cap­i­tal firm focused on the inter­sec­tion of the com­mer­cial and defense mar­kets. AVP, for­merly known as MILCOM Ven­ture Part­ners, man­ages mul­ti­ple early-stage ven­ture cap­i­tal funds includ­ing Arse­nal Ven­ture Part­ners II, OnPoint Tech­nolo­gies, and MILCOM Tech­nolo­gies. Through the funds it man­ages, the AVP team has invested in dozens of port­fo­lio com­pa­nies across three pri­mary sec­tors: com­mu­ni­ca­tions & IT, power & energy, and envi­ron­men­tal & indus­trial technologies.

As active early-stage investors, AVP’s appetite for tech­no­log­i­cally and finan­cially ambi­tious projects sets the firm apart. AVP port­fo­lio com­pa­nies are able to lever­age the AVP team’s unique depth of expe­ri­ence and it’s deep rela­tion­ships in the defense com­mu­nity to achieve mar­ket success.

For more than 100 years, BDO USA has been rec­og­nized as a pre­mier account­ing, tax, finan­cial advi­sory and con­sult­ing orga­ni­za­tion. Pro­vid­ing ser­vices to a wide range of pub­licly traded and pri­vately held com­pa­nies, BDO offers a sophis­ti­cated array of ser­vices and global capa­bil­i­ties, com­bined with the per­sonal atten­tion of expe­ri­enced and com­mit­ted professionals.

BDO serves clients through more than 41 offices and over 400 inde­pen­dent alliance firm loca­tions nation­wide. As an inde­pen­dent Mem­ber Firm of BDO Inter­na­tional Lim­ited, BDO serves multi­na­tional clients through a global net­work of 1,118 offices in 135 coun­tries. BDO USA, LLP, a Delaware lim­ited lia­bil­ity part­ner­ship, is the US mem­ber of BDO Inter­na­tional Lim­ited, a UK com­pany lim­ited by guar­an­tee, and forms part of the inter­na­tional BDO net­work of inde­pen­dent mem­ber firms. BDO is the brand name for the BDO net­work and for each of the BDO Mem­ber Firms.

Founded in 1854, Butzel Long is one of the old­est law firms in the Mid­west and has offices in Michi­gan, New York, Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Mex­ico, and China.  Since our incep­tion, we have played a promi­nent role in the devel­op­ment and growth of many industries.

We have a long and suc­cess­ful his­tory of devel­op­ing new capa­bil­i­ties and deep­en­ing our exper­tise for our clients’ ben­e­fit.  We strive to be on the cut­ting edge of tech­nol­ogy, man­u­fac­tur­ing, e-commerce, biotech­nol­ogy, intel­lec­tual prop­erty, and cross-border oper­a­tions and trans­ac­tions.  Busi­ness lead­ers have turned to us for inno­v­a­tive, highly-effective legal coun­sel for over 150 years.

 

CFE is Impact Dri­ven — we shape entre­pre­neurs who want to have a pos­i­tive impact on soci­ety – with dis­rup­tive ideas that are scal­able and meet a soci­etal need. CFE sup­ports these entre­pre­neurs and con­nects them with the Michi­gan entre­pre­neur­ial network.

Founded in 2008, the Cen­ter grew out of the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Col­lege of Engineering’s Com­mit­tee on Entre­pre­neur­ial Envi­ron­ment and Pro­grams (CEEPS), a group of fac­ulty that released its rec­om­men­da­tions in the report ““Empow­er­ing Entre­pre­neur­ial Stu­dents.”” The Com­mit­tee rec­og­nized that young inno­va­tors can help stim­u­late the state’s econ­omy. It also rec­og­nized that there were a large num­ber of aspir­ing entre­pre­neurs already at the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan, but that these indi­vid­u­als were uncon­nected and did not feel empow­ered to pur­sue their entre­pre­neur­ial ideas. While the Col­lege already had entre­pre­neur­ial fac­ulty, alumni, facil­i­ties, and cor­po­rate part­ners com­mit­ted to inspir­ing and guid­ing young entre­pre­neurs, it was lack­ing a focal point capa­ble of coor­di­nat­ing these resources. Thus, the Com­mit­tee rec­om­mended the cre­ation of a Cen­ter for Entre­pre­neur­ship within the Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing.

Real­iz­ing Entre­pre­neur­ial Inno­va­tion is the mis­sion of Flag­ship Ven­tures.  The firm oper­ates through two syn­er­gis­tic units: Ven­ture­Labs which invents and launches trans­for­ma­tive com­pa­nies, and Ven­ture Cap­i­tal, which finances and real­izes inno­v­a­tive, early-stage com­pa­nies.  Founded in 2000, and based in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts, Flag­ship Ven­tures man­ages over $900 mil­lion in cap­i­tal.  The Flag­ship team inno­vates and invests in three prin­ci­pal busi­ness sec­tors:  ther­a­peu­tics; med­ical tech­nolo­gies; and sustainability/clean tech­nol­ogy. Whether we are found­ing or fund­ing new ven­tures, our com­mit­ment to max­i­miz­ing the value of entre­pre­neur­ial inno­va­tion is unparalleled.

Honig­man Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP (www.honigman.com) is pleased to help spon­sor the Mid­west Green Tech­nol­ogy Entre­pre­neur Acad­emy. We are proud to have this oppor­tu­nity to high­light our exten­sive ven­ture cap­i­tal prac­tice, the only Michigan-based ven­ture cap­i­tal team rated in the top tier of the U.S. News/Best Lawyers rank­ings. Our ven­ture cap­i­tal lawyers pro­vide the full range of ser­vices required by technology-based com­pa­nies and their sources of cap­i­tal, includ­ing fund for­ma­tion, equity and debt financ­ings, struc­tur­ing strate­gic alliances, intel­lec­tual prop­erty pro­tec­tion, eval­u­a­tion and licens­ing and, of course, exit trans­ac­tions. At Honig­man, we have always been extra­or­di­nar­ily devoted to our clients and their busi­ness needs. Come talk to us about the busi­ness advan­tage we can pro­vide to you.

Nex­tEn­ergy pro­vides an engine for tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment and deploy­ment, both nation­ally and locally. We are help­ing change the national con­ver­sa­tion about Michi­gan, height­en­ing aware­ness of the state as an alternative-energy leader and build­ing on the state’s ongo­ing com­mit­ment to lead­er­ship in the devel­op­ment of alter­na­tive and renew­able energy. The State of Michi­gan lists alter­na­tive energy num­ber one among rapidly grow­ing busi­ness opportunities.

Nth Power is a ven­ture cap­i­tal firm based in San Fran­cisco and is the first and most expe­ri­enced ven­ture cap­i­tal firm fund­ing promis­ing startup com­pa­nies in the grow­ing sec­tor of energy tech­nol­ogy, mate­ri­als and other related busi­nesses. With $420 mil­lion under man­age­ment in four funds and an invest­ment record that begins in 1997, Nth Power is widely known and well regarded as the dri­ving force behind many of the most suc­cess­ful energy tech­nol­ogy companies.

The firm’s lead­ing his­tory in energy related ven­ture cap­i­tal is the result of a deep net­work of energy entre­pre­neurs, uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tu­tions, unmatched cor­po­rate rela­tion­ships and the back­ing of insti­tu­tional cap­i­tal. And because the firm is located in the cen­ter of much of where energy is inno­vat­ing, Nth Power plays a vision­ary role in push­ing for­ward the busi­nesses that are address­ing some of the worlds most press­ing energy challenges.

Plante & Moran is the nation’s 12th largest cer­ti­fied pub­lic account­ing and busi­ness advi­sory firm, pro­vid­ing clients with finan­cial, human cap­i­tal, oper­a­tions improve­ment, strate­gic plan­ning, tech­nol­ogy selec­tion and imple­men­ta­tion, and fam­ily wealth man­age­ment ser­vices. Plante & Moran has a staff of more than 1,600 pro­fes­sion­als in 21 offices through­out Michi­gan, Ohio, Illi­nois, Mon­ter­rey, Mexico, Mumbai, India and Shang­hai, China. Plante & Moran has been rec­og­nized by a num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing FORTUNE mag­a­zine, as one of the country’s best places to work.

The Michi­gan Energy Office (MEO) pro­motes energy effi­ciency and renew­able energy resource devel­op­ment to Michi­gan res­i­dents, busi­nesses and pub­lic insti­tu­tions. A U.S. Depart­ment of Energy des­ig­nated state energy office, the MEO oper­ates as a divi­sion of the Michi­gan Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (MEDC).  The Michi­gan Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion is a public-private part­ner­ship serv­ing as the state’s mar­ket­ing arm and lead agency for busi­ness, tal­ent and jobs, tourism, film and dig­i­tal incen­tives, arts and cul­tural grants, and over­all eco­nomic growth. MEDC offers a num­ber of busi­ness assis­tance ser­vices and cap­i­tal pro­grams for busi­ness attrac­tion and accel­er­a­tion, eco­nomic gar­den­ing, entre­pre­neur­ship, strate­gic part­ner­ships, tal­ent enhance­ment and urban and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment. MEDC, founded in 1999, also devel­oped and man­ages the state’s pop­u­lar Pure Michi­gan brand.

Miller John­son pro­vides legal coun­sel to entre­pre­neurs and start-up busi­nesses in areas such as entity for­ma­tion, rais­ing cap­i­tal, SBA loans, strate­gic part­ner­ing, tax plan­ning, employee issues and con­tract draft­ing. Work­ing with our clients, we develop a solid legal struc­ture which com­pli­ments their over­all busi­ness strat­egy. This approach enables us to pro­vide cost effec­tive legal ser­vices specif­i­cally tai­lored to meet the clients’ needs. We explain com­pli­cated legal issues in plain Eng­lish, and use our expe­ri­ence to develop cre­ative solu­tions. We call this phi­los­o­phy “down-to-earth and down to business”.

RPM Ven­tures has lever­aged Mid­west Cen­ters of Excel­lence in estab­lish­ing its rep­u­ta­tion as a national spe­cial­ist and regional gen­er­al­ists. As a national spe­cial­ist we invest in com­pa­nies across the United States sell­ing to the Mid­west man­u­fac­tur­ing or auto­mo­tive cus­tomer base. As a regional gen­er­al­ist we work to cre­ate com­pa­nies based on novel tech­nolo­gies devel­oped from Mid­west research centers.

Var­num LLP is a full ser­vice law firm with more than 150 attor­neys in five offices located in the state of Michi­gan, U.S.A.  Var­num attor­neys have dis­tin­guished them­selves in com­mu­nity ser­vice, and were recently rec­og­nized by the Gov­er­nor of the State of Michi­gan for the MiS­pring­board pro­gram which pro­vides $1 mil­lion in free legal ser­vices for entre­pre­neurs and grow­ing com­pa­nies.  Varnum’s diverse and well-rounded team of attor­neys offer a full line-up of legal ser­vices for entre­pre­neurs, includ­ing: intel­lec­tual prop­erty, all aspects of rais­ing cap­i­tal, com­mer­cial con­tracts, reg­u­la­tory com­pli­ance and labor and employment.

The firm is rec­og­nized as a lead­ing law firm by Cham­bers USA and received 16 First Tier rank­ings in the inau­gural Best Law Firms sur­vey con­ducted by U.S. News – Best Lawyers in 2010. Almost one third of the attor­neys are listed in Best Lawyers. The firm is also the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards for its efforts in diversity.